Would a Good Week be Followed by a Bad One for the British Pound?

Last week brought some good news for the British pound against many other world currencies. However, we know one good week does not guarantee another will follow it. We were about to see whether this would be true on this occasion.

An overview of the currency markets for May 6th – May 10th, 2019

The British pound opened against the US dollar with an exchange rate of 1.3159. Just a few hours later, this had dropped to 1.3097. Was this the first sign of a bad week to come? It appeared so, as the following two days brought more drops for the British currency. By Wednesday night, it was stalled on 1.3007. We did see a slight rise to 1.3014 the next day, but unfortunately it then dipped to 1.2997 to finish the week.

With that disappointment fresh in our minds, would we end up with a similar fall against the euro? We opened trading on 1.1770 here before dropping to 1.1689 at the end of day one. The trend was much the same as it had been against the dollar with one crucial difference – every day brought a new drop to bear. By Friday night, the pound was far weaker on 1.1572 against the European single currency.

Our third stop this week is with the Hong Kong dollar, where the pound got trading underway on 10.323. We saw a predictable drop to 10.276 to start things off, which turned into a prolonged slide that stalled at 10.208 on Wednesday night. Thursday brought mild good news with a rise to 10.214, before Friday finished things off with another slide, this time to 10.201.

You never can tell how things will go against the New Zealand dollar. This currency can sometimes present a very different pattern to the one created against the US dollar. However, this week would not be a memorable one for the pound in this part of the world – not in a good sense, anyway. We opened the markets on 1.9888 before dropping to 1.9816 on Monday evening. There would be no chance of celebrating any rises here either. In fact, each day-ending rate would be lower than the one before. This ended on Friday with the pound worth a disappointing 1.9711 overall.

Finally, we should see whether the pound could buck this trend against the Australian dollar. We opened on 1.8840 and fell to close out day one on 1.8733. It soon became clear the pound was going to follow the pattern set up against the US dollar. It slid to 1.8602 by the midweek stage, before rising on Thursday to hit 1.8624. This was still lower than the opening rate, and we dipped once more to finish the week on a disappointing 1.8568.

Notable events in the world of currency

Another predictable fall against the Canadian dollar

This came as no surprise, as the pound slipped from 1.7709 to open the week to 1.7445 to close it.

A steady slide against the Swiss franc

Here too we had bad news to take in. The pound did not manage to do at all well in this part of the world, falling from 1.3379 to reach 1.3146 by the time the week was out.

An up-and-down performance still resulted in bad news against the Icelandic krona

If we were hoping for some good news to end the week, we would not get it. The pound opened on 159.717 before slipping to end things on 158.276 on Friday night.

We can see there was little to be glad about this week. While last week brought plenty of good news for the British currency, this week brought anything but. We will be watching progress closely to see if the pound manages to improve on this situation next week, or whether it will turn into a gradual and prolonged slide. Fingers crossed it does not turn into the latter, but we will bring you news of whatever comes next on the currency markets.